A PRISONER OF WAR IN GERMANY
[For nine weary months, including the whole of an uncommonly bitter
winter, the teller of this story, Corporal Oliver H. Blaze, 1st
Battalion Scots Guards, was a prisoner of war in Germany. Corporal
Blaze was on outpost when he was severely wounded and captured, and
his subsequent experiences give proof that in this momentous struggle
we are fighting a people who are incapable of understanding the laws
of honourable combat, and who, in the interests of humanity and
civilisation, must be crushed. Corporal Blaze is a fine type of the
splendid Guardsmen who have done so much in this great war to add to
their own glory and the noble reputation of the British Army.]
I hardly know where to begin my story, but perhaps I might start with
a little tale of an air fight, because a night or two ago I happened
to be in the streets when German airships raided London, and I could
not help recalling the difficulty of hitting even a huge object like a
Zeppelin in the night-time.
In the early days of September 1914, when we had got used to fighting,
the battalion was on the march when a German aeroplane, decorated
with two Iron Crosses, was sighted. At that time we were more than
a thousand strong, and the lot of us opened fire with our rifles,
rattling away with rapid fire, so that we soon accounted for about
fifteen thousand rounds. At the same time another battalion not far
away was on the job, so that a perfect fusillade was going on. The
firing was tremendous, but it seemed as if the machine would not be
touched. At last, however, the aeroplane was brought down, the observer
being dead and the other man severely burnt and wounded. I do not
know whether it was our battalion or the other which got the machine;
but I called to mind the great difficulty of hitting an aircraft when
I watched the raid on London. I was walking along, too pleasantly
occupied to be thinking of war, and did not know of the affair until
I reached a street corner and saw the people craning their necks
skywards, watching the airship and the shells that were bursting under
it.
Mons, Cambrai, the Marne and the like make an old, old story by this
time, so I will get on to the tale of my nine months’ captivity in
Germany, as a prisoner of war.
It is common knowledge now that the Germans never lost a chance of
trying to do something by treachery and trickery and not playing the
game. Killed and wounded English soldiers were robbed of their coats
by the Germans, who took them for their own use; and dressed in these
coats the enemy on several occasions tried to get near us, to their
heavy cost, when we got accustomed to the dodge.
One day, early in September, not long after we had gone out with the
Expeditionary Force, a German machine-gun brigade came along, dressed
in our uniform. We thought they were reinforcements, so we let them
get very close and they occupied a ridge on our left. Ten minutes
afterwards they opened fire on us; but our garrison artillery soon
shifted them with sixty-pounders. The Germans killed a lot of the
Coldstreams that day by this trick.
It was not long after this that we had one of those experiences which
have been so often known in this great war. We were marching along in
brigade column, with the Black Watch or Coldstreams, I am not sure
which, leading. We were going through an area which had been reported
all clear, and had got to a bend in the road, when the Germans started
shelling us. It was one of those swift happenings which cannot be
avoided in such a war as this, and before we fully realised what was
taking place, a shell had burst and killed four stretcher-bearers of
the Coldstreams, the N.C.O. who was in charge, and a wounded man who
was being carried on a stretcher; and the same shell wounded a man in
our front section of fours. That one shell did a fair lot of havoc,
and it was quickly followed by several more; but these did not do much
mischief.
What struck me most in this little affair was the coolness of our C.O.,
Colonel Lowther, now a brigadier-general. He personally conducted every
company from the left of the road into a ditch on the right of the road.
“Keep cool, men,” he said, “and come this way.” And we did keep cool,
for the colonel took the direction of everything, in spite of the
shelling, just as calmly as if he was carrying out a battalion parade
at home--a really wonderful performance at a time like that, and one
which completely steadied the lot of us, though we had got pretty well
used to things.
But the Germans did not have a look in for long, for the Kilties got
hold of the gunners and chased them off. I did not see much of it,
except in the distance; but we heard the shouting as the Jocks got to
work with their bayonets.
As we were going along the road we saw where the Germans had put out
of action a whole battery of our artillery which was standing at the
side of the road. The weather was dull and it started to drizzle, so
that it was not easy to distinguish troops. While the battery was
being knocked out some of our fellows--the Loyal North Lancashire, I
think--were advancing across a field. To protect themselves from the
rain they had covered themselves with their waterproof sheets. Seeing
them, and not being able to tell who they were, but believing them to
be Germans, our gunners opened fire on them; but what damage they did I
don’t know. That was another of those things that will happen in war,
and it could hardly be helped, for about this time it was a common
dodge of the Germans to disguise themselves in British uniforms and
attack us before we could tumble to the trick.
When we had crossed the Aisne and had got into the hills we had grown
wary, and in crossing fields and open spaces we went in artillery
formation, or “blobbing,” as it is called. This “blobbing” was a
splendid way of saving the lives of men when we were under fire, for it
kept us in platoons closed, but 200 yards between each platoon, and so
enabled us to escape a good many of the bursting shells.
We went along a whole stretch of country till we reached a small
village and billeted there. In the morning we were on the move again,
driving the Germans from one crest to another, but their position was
too strong for us to shift them any farther, and then it was a long
monotonous job of hanging on and waiting. They are practically in the
same place now.
We did a lot of bayonet work from time to time; but I can’t say much
about it. I know that in one affair I saw a German. I stuck and he
stuck--and I don’t remember any more--one goes insane. I got a bang
on the back of the head from somebody, though I thought at the time
that a stone had been thrown and had struck me. I remember that day
well--September 14th--because in addition to the charge I saw a Jack
Johnson for the first time, though we christened them Black Marias
and Coal-boxes then. This monster burst amongst some French Algerian
troops, and shot a lot of them up into the air, literally blowing the
poor devils to pieces.
On October 19th we marched away and moved by train, finally getting to
Ypres. We dug trenches in a ditch on the night of the 22nd and occupied
them, and on the morning of the 23rd I went on outpost duty, little
dreaming of the fate that was in store for me. At that time shells were
dropping very heavily between our line of trenches and a village not
far away which was supposed to be occupied by the French.
It was about six o’clock in the morning when I went out with my patrol,
of which I was corporal in charge. There were four of us altogether,
and we were put on outpost duty in what proved to be a very warm
corner. The shelling went on all day, and we were looking forward to
our relief; but it did not happen to come, and so we had to hold on.
The day passed and the night came, and it was not long after darkness
that we knew that a strong rush was being made on us by the enemy--they
proved to be the 213th Landwehr Battalion of Prussian Infantry.
I saw that we were being rushed, and I knew that our chance of escape
was hopeless. I thought very swiftly just then, and my thought was, “We
can’t get away, so we may as well stick it. If we bolt we shall be
shot in the back--and we might just as well be shot in the front; it
looks better.”
They were on us before we knew where we were, and to make matters
worse, they rushed upon us from the direction of the village where we
supposed the French to be.
There was a scrap, short and sweet, between our outpost and the
Germans, and almost in the twinkling of an eye, it seemed, two of my
men were killed, one got away, and I was wounded and captured.
A bullet struck me in the right arm and I fell down, and the Germans
were on me before I knew what was happening. I still had my equipment
on, and to this fact and the prompt kind act of a wounded German--let
us be fair and say that not all Germans are brutes: there are a few
exceptions--I owe my life, for as soon as I fell a Prussian rushed at
me and made a drive with his bayonet. Just as he did so, a wounded
German who was lying on the ground near me grabbed me and gave me a
lug towards him. At this instant the bayonet jabbed at me and struck
between the equipment and my wounded arm, just touching my side. The
equipment and the wounded German’s pull had prevented the bayonet from
plunging plump into me and killing me on the spot, for the steel,
driven with such force, would have gone clean through my chest. That
was the sort of tonic to buck you up, and I didn’t need a second prick
to make me spring to my feet.
I jumped up, and had no sooner done so than a second bullet struck me
on the wounded arm and made a fair mess of it, and I knew that this
time I was properly bowled out.
I had fallen down again and was lying on the ground, bleeding badly;
and the next thing I knew was that I was being stripped. Everything I
had on me, my equipment and my clothing, was taken away; not for the
purpose of letting a doctor examine me, as one did later, but as part
of a system of battlefield plunder which the Germans have organised.
The very first thing the doctor said when he saw the wounds was
“Donnerwetter!” I was taken to a barn and left there till morning. I
had treatment, then I was moved into another barn. The Germans were
decent over the business, and there was no brutality or anything of
that kind. I had been taken from the second barn, and was being carried
across a field, when the ambulance was stopped by a German doctor who
was on horseback. He looked at my arm, and instantly said that it would
have to be amputated right away, as mortification had set in; and so,
lying on the stretcher, which had been put down in the field, and round
which a small green tarpaulin had been rigged to keep the wind and cold
out, my arm was taken off. Injections had been made in the arm, and I
felt no pain during the operation, which I watched with great interest.
The doctor who performed it had studied at Guy’s Hospital and spoke
English well. When I had been removed to a German hospital in Belgium
he saw me every morning, noon, and night, and I had exactly the same
food as the Germans, while the old inspector of the hospital used to
give me custard and fruit now and again, when he thought no one was
looking; and I had cigarettes and cigars issued to me just the same as
to their own men.
I was in this hospital in Belgium for a fortnight, and was then
moved into Germany, being sent to Münster, in Westphalia, with a
lot of wounded Germans. It seemed as if, in leaving Belgium, I had
said good-bye to civilisation, in view of what happened during my
imprisonment in Germany.
I very soon made acquaintance with German brutality to British
prisoners of war--brutality and cowardice, of which I saw constant
signs in my captivity; I say cowardice advisedly, because only a coward
will hit and bully a man who can’t hit back. On that point, however,
there is some consolation. It was practically a death matter to strike
a German soldier, even under great provocation; but if you were struck
first, you had your remedy, and nothing pleased a British soldier more
than to be struck, because that gave him his chance, and many a hard
British fist got home on a fat German jowl. I shall always be thankful
to know that I got one or two in on my own account, though I had only
my left arm to work with. I did not, of course, strike until I had been
struck first; but when I did hit out I got my own back, with a lot of
interest.
That is getting off the track a bit, so I will go back. At Münster I
was taken into a disused circus which had been turned into a hospital
for prisoners, and when I got there the doctor examined my wound. It
was all raw, but he messed about to that extent that I fainted. Two
mornings afterwards--they only dressed us every two mornings--I was
lying on a table, to be dressed. The job was to be done by a young
German student, a born brute, for I tell only the plain truth when I
say that he deliberately cut the flesh of my only arm with his lancet
and scissors.
“English swine!” he said. “He’s had one arm off, and he ought to have
the other off, too!”
This was the type of fellow who was let loose on wounded helpless
British prisoners of war.
Those dressings were horrible experiences, as a rule, for I was held
down on the table by German orderlies, who had about as much feeling
and compassion as the table itself.
Let me give another illustration of the German way of treating wounded
British soldiers. Just after Christmas I was moved into an open camp at
Münster, and the only covering I had was a tarpaulin, the result being
that I caught cold in my wound, and on January 2nd I was moved back
into another hospital. I knew nothing whatever about the regulations
of the place, so that I saw nothing wrong in walking along an ordinary
looking passage. As I did this there came towards me a man who
corresponds in rank to our regimental sergeant-major. I was suffering
greatly from my stump, and was quite helpless; yet this fellow seized
me by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the trousers and threw me
out of the passage--and it was not till later that I learned that the
passage led to the operating-room, and that patients were not allowed
to use it. Such a thing could not possibly happen in a British military
hospital containing wounded German soldiers. It is only fair to say
that the food we got in hospital was good.
Though my wound was not healed, I was sent away from the hospital
and back to the camp. That was bad in some ways, but it had a fine
compensation, for I was attended by two of our own medical officers of
the Royal Army Medical Corps who were also prisoners--Captain Rose and
Captain Croker. I believe they have been exchanged now. I need not say
what a joy it was to be looked after by our own splendid doctors, after
my experience of German brutality and callousness.
[Illustration:
_To face p. 24._
A BRITISH SOLDIER HELPING A WOUNDED GERMAN PRISONER INTO A
CONVEYANCE.]
Time passed slowly and very wearily, and the monotony became deadly.
It was bitterly cold, and snow fell heavily and constantly till about
April. We did our best to keep cheerful and fit, and were always
thankful when we could get a chance of playing games. Sometimes we
played football with our sentries; but they were sorry sportsmen, and
could not endure being beaten, even in fair football. There were some
Royal Welsh Fusiliers amongst the prisoners, and three footballs had
been sent out to them. These footballs reached the camp safely, and
everybody was hugely pleased with them. We got up a match between a
British team and the German sentries, and beat them six to one. It
was a straightforward, honest match, and a fair and square win; but
the Germans could not stomach it, and for three days our smoking was
stopped. No reason for the stoppage was given; but we knew well enough
what the cause was, especially as the order applied only to the British
prisoners of war.
I will give another instance of the utter smallness of the German
spirit. On the night of the day when Italy declared war on Austria we
were sitting outside our wooden huts singing our own National Anthem,
the “Marseillaise,” “Rule, Britannia,” and lighter compositions such as
“Hi! Tiddley hi ti!”--in fact, anything that came to mind, just to keep
things moving and cheerful. Then the news of Italy’s decision came and
fairly struck the Germans dumb. No reason was given for the steps they
took against us--though we knew perfectly well what the cause was--but
our smoking was stopped for seven days. Some of us were locked in the
lavatories for twenty-four hours, and for twenty days our meat was
stopped, so that we were almost starved. And on top of all this, two
Englishmen and a Belgian were sent to a punishment camp. God knows what
happened to them.
During all this bitter winter weather we were accommodated in wooden
huts, which we had been put to build ourselves. We did not mind that in
the least, because we were thankful to be employed. But it was almost
impossible to keep warm in the huts, owing to our scanty clothing and
the small number of stoves. There were two stoves in each room, but
we were only allowed one small box of coal--sometimes coke--daily for
each. Generally speaking, the British prisoners could not get near the
stoves because of the foreign prisoners who crowded around them, all
day long, swathed in a pair of blankets. To add to the misery of the
life, the bedding was horribly verminous, and we were only allowed to
have one wash a day. That solitary wash was early in the morning, and
we could not get any more, because the wash-house was closed after 7
a.m.
The food was very poor, and there was not enough of it. There was
plenty of soup of a sort--and well there might be, for it was mostly
water--and there were solids of a kind for which an Englishman has
no liking--chestnuts, potatoes and horse beans--poor stuff after the
splendid rations we had had as British soldiers from our own Army
Service Corps. The drinks were as bad as the solids. We had what was
called coffee given to us; but there was not much difference between
the coffee and the soup. As for clothing, no real attempt was made to
supply us, though in so many cases we had been stripped naked when
captured. When I went out of camp, just after Christmas, I had only a
pair of trousers and a pair of sabots, wooden shoes, and I should have
fared badly if I had not been lucky enough to receive an old cycling
jacket which my mother had sent out to me.
The following statement will show exactly how and when we were fed each
day:--In the morning, at six o’clock, we had “coffee,” made from burnt
rye, but nothing to eat; at twelve noon, soup, with a plentiful supply
of water in it and any one of the following ingredients: chestnuts,
potatoes, horse beans, sauerkraut, acorns. At 12.30 to 1 p.m. there
was an issue of bread, the loaves being about 2½ in. by 6 in. by 2 in.
At 3 p.m. there was “coffee,” as at 6 a.m., but nothing to eat; and at
6 p.m. there was soup, as for dinner, but no meat, fish or cheese. By
this you will see that we had nothing to eat from 6 p.m. till noon the
following day--a period of eighteen hours. We had a small piece of meat
three times a fortnight, cheese once a week, and two raw herrings a
week.
As for passing the time, it was one long dreary “roll on, night.”
Cards, draughts, football, and causing as much trouble as we dared to
the Germans, with a little singing, formed our only means of keeping
sane. Nearly everybody had to work at something or other, the hours of
work being 7 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. (empty stomachs), and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
There was only one occasion when we had a little change from the bad
treatment, and that was when a batch of German prisoners of war, who
had been in England and exchanged, returned. They must have told how
splendidly they were treated in English hospitals--which, as I know,
are paradise compared with German hospitals--for we were better fed and
looked after for a time. This improvement did not last long, however,
and we went back to the old ways. Germans can’t keep a good thing going.
German cunning and lying soon made themselves evident, for under the
guise of voluntary work a lot of the prisoners of war were obliged to
work in mines and ironworks, and by being forced to do these things
they were really helping to fight their own people.
The way the trick was done was this--Germans came round and asked
prisoners to volunteer to act as waiters, and a lot of us readily
agreed, because any sort of employment was better than awful idleness.
But the “waiters” soon learned that they had been shamefully deceived,
for they were sent into mines and ironworks and on to farms. It was no
use to protest, because it was a case of work or no food. There was
so little to eat in the ordinary way that poor fellows could not face
actual starvation, and so they worked unwillingly. I was asked to go
and work in the fields, but I was quite incapable of doing this, and so
I told the camp commandant, who put me into the office.
I had had experience of orderly-room work with the Guards, and felt
quite at home at this job--and it was interesting, too, for I was in
the extraordinary position of being a sort of censor!
My duty was to handle letters from England for the prisoners, and see
that no news, or cuttings from newspapers, or other forbidden things
got through. There were three of us doing this work--two sergeants
and myself, one sergeant being in charge of the parcels. I naturally
did the best I could for the prisoners. This office work was both
interesting and exciting, and helped to get the time along.
As for our privations generally, there was nothing for it but to
make the best of them and grin and bear it. The American Consul at
Münster paid two visits to the camp while I was there, but no good
came of them. Again the crafty German was prepared. It was known on
each occasion that the Consul was coming--known two days before he
arrived--so things were ready for him. He inspected only a few of the
rooms, and the principal result of the first visit was that our dinner
was two hours late. We made complaints, but nothing came of them, so
when the Consul visited us for the second time and asked if there were
any complaints to make, we bluntly answered, “No, it’s no good making
them, for nothing’s done.” The Germans instantly published in the
local paper the statement, “The English are satisfied. They have no
complaints.”
Constant attempts were made to escape, and I fancy that some of the
prisoners gave up the whole of their time to plotting and planning
ways of clearing out. The chance of getting away was small, because
at night the camp, buildings as well as compounds, was brilliantly
lighted by big electric arc lamps, and there were sentries and barbed
wire entanglements everywhere. But in spite of all precautions several
Belgians and a few Englishmen and Frenchmen escaped, and we were
immensely pleased when we heard that one Belgian had got away by
stealing the commandant’s motor-car and bolting in it. I did not hear
what became of him.
Brutal punishments were inflicted for the most trivial offences, such
as smoking in forbidden places, and a common method was to tie a
prisoner to a post, with his feet deep in snow, and leave him there
for two hours, with an armed sentry over him. The poor wretch dare not
move, if he did the brave warrior with the gun kicked him--the German
is a fine hand at hitting when the other chap can’t hit back. This
savage cruelty had a terrible effect on some of the victims, and helped
to make them the life-long wrecks that they now are.
From Münster I was sent to Brussels for exchange. We were quartered in
the Royal Academy, and naturally enough the Belgian women and children
tried to give us things. When this was seen, the German wounded who
were in the building were ordered to turn the hose on, and they did.
It was a great laugh, though, for it took them four hours to fix the
hose--and then it would not work properly.
The authorities suddenly decided that I should not be exchanged,
because I was a non-commissioned officer, and I was sent to Wesel on
the Rhine, where I stayed six weeks. I had to go into hospital again,
because my wound would not heal--it never got a sporting chance. Ill
treatment continued, and for reasons, mostly revenge, which Britishers
would scorn. The chief of this hospital was an old man whose only son
had been lost in a submarine that had been sunk by the British. I saw
that something was wrong as soon as he appeared in the morning, and I
felt that we should get it hot, though I did not know how.
The old doctor had all the English prisoners sent for, and incredible
as it may seem, every wound that was healed was deliberately reopened
and plugged, while wounds that were not healed were probed inside and
all the newly-formed flesh was destroyed. Many of us suffered terribly
for a long time as the result of the visit to us of the old man who had
lost his son in fair fight.
My wound was finally healed on July 25th, exactly nine months from the
day on which my arm was taken off.
My sole object now was to get away from the horrible country and the
more horrible people, and, thank God, I managed to do it. The refusal
to exchange me was a bitter blow, but I soon pulled up and set to work
to get away. Accordingly, when I reached Wesel, I reported myself as
a private, and I was reckoned as a private and put in the list for
exchange. I was sent to Aix-la-Chapelle.
Soon after this I came away with other prisoners of war, and one of
the most glorious moments of my life was when I set eyes again on Old
England.
There is one strange incident that I have kept to the last.
I have said that when I was shot on outpost I was stripped. My jacket
must have been thrown aside, for next day a chum of mine picked it up
and put it in his pack, thinking I had been killed, and meaning to
bring it home, if he lived, as a relic. During many a long day and
hard fight he carried that extra burden in his pack--no little thing
to do--then he himself was wounded and sent home. He brought my jacket
with him, and now I have it, and shall always treasure it as a memento
of my war-days. The jacket is smothered in blood.
There are about 28,000 Britishers still in Germany, suffering as I
suffered--some worse. They want releasing. The only way to release them
is to end the war, and the only way to end the war is the cooperation
of every man and woman, old and young, rich and poor, working for one
object--VICTORY.
[Illustration:
_To face p. 33._
BRITISH SOLDIERS CHARGING THROUGH A SMOKE-CLOUD.]